Help with photography

[Andy Miles]

Hello Chaps; I was wondering if anybody could give me a few tips on photographing engraved work specifically guns, the method I use at the moment is in almost darkness with one strip light bounced off a white wall, so the gun is lit from a single direction, then take numerous photos from all different angles, on a trial and error basis, I get one or two that work, though they are always very dark, would it help if I used a different light source? and if so what?

Thanks.

Andy Miles.

 

[Tira]

Hello Andy and welcome to the forum.

Photography is a subject that is a challenge for all of us to show the detail and workmanship of our projects. There are many posts on photography already on the forum if you do a search on it above. Also, Sam has a tutorial on photography on www.igraver.com which you can get to by clicking the "tutorial" button above and looking on the lower left side of the igraver page for his tips and tricks under "photography." Sam shows how to construct an inexpensive light tent/reflector which may help you even out the lighting problem. There are also commercially made light tents available. Finally, indirect lighting outside in the shade on a sunny day usually produces a nice light source too.

Good luck! I'm sure some of our photography experts will be along shortly for more ideas.

 

[Andy Miles]

Thanks

Thanks Tira: I should have spotted that earlier!!

 

[KCSteve]

Here's one tip I can give you right off the bat: get a grey card.

Your camera is trying to make the image as a whole come out a nice, medium 'grey' (well, it would be grey if it were B&W). What you need to do is get a grey card so you can help it do it right.

Get everything set up, put the camera on a tripod (which will improve your photographs in and of itself). Put your grey card right on the gun and zoom in tight on it. Press the shutter button half way down and your camera should show you what settings it's going to use - something like "5.6 125" - that's f5.6 and 1/125 second. And yes, I just pulled those numbers out of the air as examples. Ok, now switch your camera to its Manual mode and set it to those numbers. Move the grey card out of the way, adjust your zoom to get the image you want and give it a try. If you're using a digital you'll get instant feed back on how it looks. If it's too dark you need to add light - either make the f-stop (that '5.6' type number) smaller or decrease your shutter speed. If it's too bright you need to take some light away so do the opposite.

f-stops get smaller to let in more light because they're fractions - 1/2 is twice as large as 1/4 just like f2.8 is twice as large an aperature as f5.6.

Shutter speeds are shown as fractions of a second so 125 is twice as long as 250 (they're really 1/125 and 1/250 second). When you get slow enough that you're actually talking about seconds they generally add an 's' (or other mark) to the speed so you can tell whether it's 1/3 second or 3 seconds (usually shown as "3" and "3s").

May as well toss in the 30-second explanation of shutter speed, aperature, and depth of field.

To take a picture you need to get a certain amount of light to the 'film' (or digital sensor these days). We'll call it one gallon of light because it's easy to picture.

Ok, so you need one gallon through the lens. Less than that and the picture's too dark, more and it's too bright. So how do you control how much light comes through?

You've got two controls, the 'aperature' and the 'shutter speed'. Imagine the lens as a funnel with a valve. The aperature is how big the hole in the funnel is and the shutter speed is how long the valve is open.

If you have a big, wide funnel you only need it open for a very short time to get that one gallon through. If it's a small, skinny funnel it's going to take a lot longer. So if you change one of the values you have to change the other one to match. Camera settings are traditionally in units called 'stops' and you'll hear references to adding or subtracting a 'stop'. Generally that means changing one of the two settings by one unit. A 'unit', or 'stop' is a doubling or halving. Shutter speeds are in fractions of a second and it's pretty clear that 1/125 is twice as long as 1/250. Photographers like easy math so they don't always stick to the exact double / half rule. They're also lazy so they usually leave off the "1/" and just add an 's' when you get to full seconds. A common sequence from fast to slow would go 1000 (1/1000), 500, 250, 125, 60 (because 62.5 is too hard), 30, 15, 8 (instead of 7.5), 4, 2, 1s, 2s, 3s... Your camera may do half-stops or third stops (1/2 of a stop or 1/3 of a stop) increments - those will be numbers between these.

Aperature is also a fraction but it's a fraction of the total area of the lens. This means it involves the square root of 2 (1.4, in case you forgot). Don't worry - you don't have to do the math, just remember two numbers: 2, and 2.8. The full stops on aperature run off of those two numbers, with the same sort of "we know there's a 1/ so we don't write it" and "don't do any hard fractions" things as the shutter speeds. So the f-stop sequence runs: 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32...

So if the settings f8 / 125 will get you your 'gallon' of light then so will the settings f11 / 60 and f5.6 / 250 (notice how one goes up when the other goes down?). Also notice that the fstops aren't the simple doubling that shutter speeds are because of that square root of two issue.

Now that we know how to keep the settings moving together, why would you want to?

There are two reasons: speed and depth of field.

Speed is easy - if the shutter speed is high (fast) then you freeze the motion. That's usually what you want but sometimes it isn't. Going to a slower speed like 1/30 will make moving water look silky and cool. In any case usually the problem is that you need to long a shutter speed - things that move will blur and you'll need a tripod to hold the camera steady.

Depth of field is the term for how much of the picture is in focus. When you focus the camera on something you're making little cones of light coming through the lens. The light coming through the lens from your focus point is in a cone with the point exactly hitting the film. That's perfect focus. But no one's perfect - since we don't have perfect vision you can be a little bit off and still be ok. Instead of a perfect point you get a little circle. The largest circle you can get and still see a point is called the 'Circle of Confusion'. Here's the fun part: the light coming in from in front of and behind where you focused is also forming little cones - it's just that their points are hitting behind / in front of the film (remember, for the cones that 'end' in front of the film the light just goes through the point and then expands back out in a matching cone). So, since we've already figured out that we don't have to have the point of the light cone exactly on the film the question is how far from the point of the cone can we go before we exceed that circle of confusion. That's what's called 'depth of field'.

Ok, back to our aperature. That's what says how far the lens is open. This part is easy with pictures and a little longer with words (that's why I've typed so much). When the lens is wide open - f1.4 - then you get a big, fat, wide cone. You can hardly move away from the exact point of it before you exceed that circle of confusion. That means that with a large f-stop (a low number) you have a very shallow depth of field (DOF). But if you use a small f-stop (larger number) then you get long, skinny needle-like cones. You can go a long way from the point of one of these before you exceed the Circle of Confusion. So if you want to see a lot in front of and behind where you focus you want a small aperature - f11, f16, f22, etc.. If you want to focus just on one bit then you want a wide open lens (f2.8, f1.4).

Now back to that shutter speed aperature relationship. If you want to get a lot of light in quick you need a wide open aperature. Say it's dark and you don't want motion blur. That means you need a wide open lens. But that means you'll have to be very careful with your focus because of your shallow DOF.

But what if you want a wide DOF? That means you need to close that aperature down which means your shutter speed is going to get long. That means you need a tripod and things holding still (or really bright light such as a flash).

So, finally getting back to taking pictures of engraving, all of this means you need to control your DOF as well as your exposure. If you're taking pictures of something flat - hobo nickel, broach, bracelet before it's formed - then you probably want (or at least don't mind) a shallow DOF so you can use a wide open aperature and a high shutter speed. But if you're doing something 'deep' - bracelet formed for wearing or a gun, then you need a wide DOF so you need a very small aperature which will require a longer shutter speed and/or more light.

If all of this doesn't have you confused enough I'm willing to work harder.

 

[Tom Curran]

Also look at this site, American Long Rifles, for a discussion on gun photography:
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=382.0

look at Bill Shipman's photos taken on a cloth in his driveway, on a cloudy day.....
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=296.0


Steve, thanks for putting all those descriptions into words. As a struggling photographer, i read almost everything I come across. This maks a lot of sense to me, especially you DOF description, and its connsection to aperture. May I share your thoughts with others on the American Longrifles forum? We are trying to put a tutorial together, and I'd like them to read your descriptions.

Thanks, Tom

 

[Tom Curran]

This photo is with a small aperture. almost everything is in focus. This can work for or against you. In gun photography, with its many curved surfaces, and parts closer AND farther away from the lens, sometimes a small aperture is called for. A tripod is a must.

This is with a large aperture. Notice only one little edge of the patchbox is in crisp sharp focus. The rest is fuzzy, foreground and background. This is a good technique for displaying only what you want to be show off.

 

[KCSteve]

Tom

No problem passing it along - that's why I typed it out.

I also have a 'Small Object Photography Tutorial' both in the Tips archive here and on my own site here you can pass along the link to if you wish.

 

[Roger Bleile]

Steve, thanks for that great explanation which makes the subject very understandable.

Tom, Thanks for the illustrative photos. Will you be at the CLA in Lexington and will you have that rifle pictured there?

Roger

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Andy

One of the quickest, cheapest and easiest ways is to build yourself a light tent/box (or you can buy pre made ones as they are cheap enough). This can be done with anything white that will allow light to pass through. Surround it with lights.................. or take it outside. Take the photo through a hole in the light tent.

The thing that you are trying to acheive is diffusing the light evenly to avoid any reflection or directional light creating strong highlights and shadows.

With this method it is essential that you avoid strong coloured backgrounds. Stick to white or light grey or anything neutral. If you use blue, red, orange etc these will reflect around the metal and give your edges colour. If you want a bright red background then try to do that in photoshop if possible.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Sam]

All of the photos on my site as well as iGraver.com were shot with the same setup I've used for 20+ years. If you read my tutorial on iGraver you'll see what I'm talking about. I don't claim it's the best or better than other methods, but it's proven itself time and time again.

With the cost of film and processing, it was important to get in the zone as quickly as possible as far as camera settings go. With digital you can shoot with abandon and not worry about that. I would suggest setting your camera to the lowest ISO setting, let the shutter speed float, and set the lens aperture to f8 or f11 as most lenses are optimized for those aperture settings. If you don't have enough depth of field, stop the lens down as far as needed to achieve it. Trial and error come into play, and once you're in the zone, you'll be able to shoot with the same or similar settings from then on (in most cases).

Andrew has good advice on backgrounds. Neutral is best for sure.

Once you learn to get good shots, then the next step is to tweak them to perfection in with Photoshop. / ~Sam

 

[Andrew Biggs]

Hi Sam

I'm thinking of buying a digital SLR....................what camera do you use now?

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Andy Miles]

Photo info

Thanks Sam, Andrew, Steve, and Tom.
I have learnt a lot over the last few hours, the workings of the camera to start with, and now the lighting, that was my problem, I had assumed it had to be from one direction, and was not sure weather it had to be of a special type, I had a rostrum for photographing my illustration work a few years back (set up for me!) that was lit by two mercury lamps to keep the whites white, all I had to do was fit the camera and take 3 shots at different f stops, worked perfectly every time, I have now read your tutorial Sam, and am in the process of making a tent.
A couple of weeks back I bought a new DSLR thinking that would sort the problem,
I wish I had asked here first!!

Thanks again everybody.

Andy.

 

[Sam]

Andy: in photography, lighting is everything. You can have the best camera in the world and if the lighting is bad, the photo is bad. You can have great ligting and a cheap camera and the photos can be excellent (within reason). Your new DSLR is fine...don't have buyers remorse. It's many times better than point-and-shoot cameras.

I'm really happy to see that you're on a mission to get good photos of your work. SO MANY engravers spend a lot of effort choosing handpieces, graver material, microscopes, etc, and completely drop the ball when it comes to getting quality photos of their work. As i've said many times, photography is no longer an option in our trade. It's a must, and with digital cameras, excellent software, and the variety of ready-made lighting setups, it's never been easier.

Andrew: My camera is a Canon 20D. It's been replaced by the 40D. Abigail has the Digital Rebel XT (which is the 350D outside the US). Both accept all of our Canon lenses and have the same sensors. The XT (now the XTi) has a few less bells & whistles and is lighter. I highly recommend Canon, but Nikon will serve you well, too.
~Sam

 

[Mario Sarto]

Hi Andy and all other!
Perhaps there is no possibility to change the conditions of the illumination (maybe in a museum or somewhere else). Try out HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) if you have such a fine DSLR like Sam.

As you can see, the pictures below are different (sorry for the poor model, an old casted ring, but i think, for show this it is ok). Both where taken under the same lightning. The left one was conventionally shot. I need to extend the exposure time to get a small look into the dark zones of the ring. Of course the rest of it is overexpose.
The right picture was made with HDRI (in this case 3 shots). I believe you see the difference: more details at all and the overexpose is avoid.

Hope you find it useful and please go on with your fantastic posts on this superb forum!
Mario

 

[jlseymour]

Andrew I bought a Nikon D80 that Nikon refurbished from the www.refurbdepot.com for a great price...
Broke the bannet clip on the lens and sent it to Nikon and they replaced it for free after the warranty
ran out...
Jerry

 

[Leonardo]

Nice thread!
Thank you Steve, for taking the time to write that explanation. I am sure that it worth your effort.
Now, and with the intention to add some funny, would you (all) think that this lady would have some lighting, focus, DOF, etc. problems???!!

Have fun, and a nice weekend!
Leonardo

 

[Ron Smith]

For a long time, I used a white sheet on a roll up situation so i could roll it up when not in use. This simplifies some things. I could do it right in the yard on a bright, sunny day. I could get under it and it worked very good. You can let one side of the sheet work as a backdrop too if you choose. It is fairly simple if you want to try it. You could use tent poles too, as long as they are just around the edges and will not reflect onto the article you are photographing. May take a little experimentation, but once you get your system down it works pretty good. This just gives you another option to try. also, get outside on an overcast day and you can get pretty good pictures. These ideas will work if you are short on cash. Once you can afford it, you will want to go to some of the other suggestions. I now use a light tent made from a white translucent plastic waste bag (a drape situation). I can take it with the camera wherever I go and Photograph right on the spot using artificial light, if I have time to set it up. It all (drape) attaches to my trypod except for the lighting.
Just some ideas and options to try.
Ron S

 

[Andy Miles]

Photo info

Thanks everybody: The camera I have bought is a Sony ax350 + 100mm 2.8 macro lens, I have been running tests with a bed sheet and small strip-light, even so the result is much much better, I know this isn't great, and please excuse the grubbiness, finger prints and dog-hairs.

I have ordered a photographic tent with removable backgrounds, and two daylight flourescent 5000k studio lights this afternoon and I am hopeful that with those and all your help it will sort the problem.


Thanks again.

Andy Miles.

[/IMG]

 

[KCSteve]

Andy

Nice work! - both the engraving and the photography. The dog hairs and such are where Photoshop comes in. I myself never have a problem with dog hairs. Lots of cat hair, but no dog hair.

Leonardo

I don't know - looks like she's getting a picture of what she's really interested in.

 

[Sam]

Before and after a bit of levels and saturation tweaking in Photoshop. Levels adjustment increased contrast just a bit, and lowering the saturation got rid of the yellow cast. The exposure is pretty good on this photo, but the shiny area around the rosette on the far right is a bit overexposed. Be sure to monitor your histogram when shooting in order to avoid burning out areas like this.

Nice photo and nice engraving too!

~Sam